Tuesday, January 31, 2012

NASCAR Regains Digital Rights

The buzz has been around for several months, but Monday it was made official. After many years of the Turner Sports Interactive group running the NASCAR.com website and controlling all the digital (Internet) rights to the sport, big change has arrived.

Here are excerpts from the official news release provided by Turner Sports:

NASCAR and Turner Sports announced today a restructuring and extension of their long-standing digital partnership. The new agreement takes the relationship through 2016, with NASCAR managing business and editorial operations for its digital platforms beginning in 2013 and Turner Sports continuing to oversee advertising sales and sponsorships across NASCAR-branded digital platforms.

"Turner Sports has been and will continue to be a great partner for NASCAR," said Brian France, chairman and chief executive officer of NASCAR. "Taking a leadership role as it relates to our digital rights is something we as the sanctioning body know is important for the future of our sport, the development of our drivers and most importantly the experience for both our current fans and future followers."

"Turner Broadcasting and NASCAR have helped make each other successful for more than 28 years through a working relationship that, over time, has evolved with the media and technology landscape," said David Levy, president of sales, distribution and sports, Turner Broadcasting System Inc. "The latest extension of our partnership is a strategically and fiscally enhanced business model for our company and ensures that NASCAR.COM remains a core asset of Turner's leading digital ad sales portfolio. Our unrivaled sports assets and scale offer advertisers the means to deliver the most targeted and relevant marketing messages across multiple digital and mobile platforms and properties."

Under the new partnership, NASCAR will assume operational control in 2013 of all of its interactive, digital and social media rights including technical operations and infrastructure of all NASCAR digital platforms. Turner will continue to represent sponsorships and advertising for all NASCAR digital platforms, with the unique users from the NASCAR digital properties continuing to roll up to the Turner digital portfolio.

NASCAR’s comprehensive digital and social media portfolio includes NASCAR.COM, fantasy games, video highlights, social media elements and in-depth editorial content. NASCAR.COM, and the sport’s other digital and social media platforms, have been managed by Turner Sports since 2001.

"This move is about the media, our sponsors and most importantly, our fans," said Marc Jenkins, vice president of digital media for NASCAR. "We will build an innovative portfolio of platforms that strives to be as diverse as it is comprehensive. For our fans our digital platform will become the online destination for all things NASCAR. For everyone else, it will be the vehicle we’ll use to turn them into fans."

The bottom line is that NASCAR has taken back full control of its online content from a third party. Not mentioned in the release is what financial agreement really made this deal happen. Speculation was that NASCAR would be on the hook to pay Turner anywhere from $25 to 50 million to get out of the existing agreement.

Perhaps, the news that the relationship is going to continue in several key revenue areas through 2016 mitigated or negated the payment issue. We should eventually know those details as the story continues to be reported in the media.

This is good news for fans and opens the door to NASCAR scrapping the current NASCAR.com model and creating a viable and modern home website for the sport. This change should be a springboard for portable live video, online streaming of SiriusXM content and much more. Stay tuned for details as this story continues to evolve.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

If you jump over to the NFL or NHL home websites you can see the changes on the way.

NASCAR can now use it's own in-house digital assets like the NASCAR Media Group and it's own public relations peeps to provide content for fans.

How opinion and commentary is provided is an issue for the future NASCAR.com management.

In the meantime, issues like streaming SiriusXM weekday content online, providing online video from the NASCAR archives and letting live video migrate to smart phones and other devices can now be controlled by NASCAR.

In other words, NASCAR ran a sport it could only present on TV and radio as it sold the Internet rights for cash. That deal came back to bite the sport big time.

Change is on the horizon and we will keep track of what happens now that this huge issue has finally been resolved.

Aside from all of the items JD brought up of which each Planeteer cares to a different extent, let me focus on one of the main things I hope to see changed...the most terribly-designed and laid out website of any major sport where each redesign made it even more confusing and drove more people to Jaysiki's and elsewhere for their NASCAR news.

The sad thing is, this deal does not begin until 2013...so, one more year of Turner control.

Great news to my ears! JD you say the Sirius feed will be streamed now will the fans be able to pay just for that. I never got Sirius or XM cause I would have no use with any other station, always wished they would offer the Nascar 24 hours station on its own! Anyways its about damn time just wish it would start this season :) But I cant be greedy just happy to hear the news

I hope this will help clean up the messy NASCAR.com. All the content on the website is just stuffed on the homepage. Articles, twitter, polls, schedules, results, points, pictures, driver ratings, ads, etc. just crammed in where they can fit. Not only is the site unorganized, but NASCAR.com is usually the last website to report 'new' NASCAR news. Change has been long overdue.

I noticed John you referenced a couple of times streaming of Sirius weekday programing, not all programs. I can understand wanting to control/sell access to actual race coverage, but shows like Press Pass, Front Stretch and Claires pre and post race shows would be great to offer as well.

I have always had trouble understanding how the weekday programming on sirius even fell under the agreement. I guess it's because it's PRN/MRN produced? It's not NASCAR produced and there's nothing about the shows that requires NASCAR approval. The exact same shows could be on the air with or without NASCARs consent. The only NASCAR aspect is that the channel is called "NASCAR Radio". So can you explain why this was ever an issue to begin with? it's always confused me...Moody used to talk NASCAR before Sirius was NASCAR radio just not 100% NASCAR.

Ian, thanks for raising that point. It's tough to describe, but basically we are talking about all the non-racing programming on Sirius since there is an existing deal with MRN and PRN for the live races.

It should be interesting to see what kind of deal emerges when all the parties are finally able to sit down (without Turner) and try to do what is best for the sport.

We have been talking for five years about trying to get NASCAR included in the current SiriusXM streaming package. Deals were just done for Howard Stern and the NFL, but once again Turner was the block for NASCAR.

On the down side of this, you have to think of who will be controlling this. The same people who dictate what we see on TV. So we'll be getting more of the same propaganda just from the digital outlets. So don't be disappointed or surprised when you hear/read the "everything is beautiful" mantra.

Thoughts: The audio/video posted by the NASCAR media group is a boring snooze-fest most of the time. Let's start with some media training to help these drivers find some personality and passion! Also, let's hope doesn't get so anxious to jump on the latest technology that we have to upgrade our machines yearly. Last year's Trackpass was so advanced they were giving away free months to compensate users who had to buy more RAM. (I know, I was one.) Oh and I'm still LOL'n over somebody name checking T.G. Sheppard.